First Aboriginal Senator Neville Bonner AO Born March 28, 1922 Ukerebagh Island, Tweed Heads, NSW Died of lung cancer at Ipswich, Qld on 5 February 1999 NEVILLE Bonner's childhood was marked by hunger, discrimination and dispossession. Despite that, and with only one year of formal education, he became known as the elder statesman of Australia's indigenous people. The former Liberal Senator and elder of the south-east Queensland Jagera people had been suffering from lung cancer for some time before..... He was 76 when he died. In 1971, Mr Bonner became the first Aborigine elected to Federal Parliament. And after 12 years as a Senator, he held a series of prominent positions, serving as a director on the board of the ABC, as the senior official visitor for all Queensland prisons and as head of the Indigenous Advisory Council - the peak body advising the Queensland Government on indigenous issues. Last year, he attended Australia's Constitutional Convention on behalf of the group Australians for a Constitutional Monarchy. [Read Mr Bonner's address to the Convention] Bonner endured criticism for his approach to politics from both black and white Australians. In the 1970s he supported land rights but would not condone breaking the law. In the 90s, as the native title debate raged around him, he urged negotiation not confrontation, as the key to reconciliation. He spoke simply of the goal of "togetherness". "We've got to come together, that's what we want for Australia. A one people. We're all Australians, regardless of your ethnic background, regardless of your political belief, regardless of your religious beliefs we are all Australians," he said. Despite his successes, Mr Bonner once told the ABC that he felt torn between two worlds. "I am an Aborigine, I think like an Aborigine, I feel like an Aborigine," he said. "Whilst I'm able to live in this other world, most of me is back in the other world." Detailed biography http://www.abc.net.au/news/features/obits/bonner/bonner_bio.htm AUDIO PLAYING THE WHITE MAN'S GAME When Neville Bonner knew he did not have long to live, he gave this comprehensive interview to Stuart Sommerlad. In it he returns again and again to the difficulties and pain he has faced in pioneering the "hard road" between two cultures. [RealAudio] http://www.abc.net.au/news/features/obits/bonner/interview.htm JAGERA SORRY CHANT Neville Bonner sang the moving song as part of his address to the Constitutional Convention, Feb 1998. [RealAudio] http://www.abc.net.au/news/features/obits/bonner/sorry.ram TEXT MEMORIES AND PAIN Neville Bonner's address to the Constitutional Convention, Feb 1998 http://www.abc.net.au/news/features/obits/bonner/ccaddress.htm INTERACTIVE YOUR TRIBUTES Submit your thoughts on the life of Neville Bonner and read what others had to say. http://www.abc.net.au/news/features/obits/bonner/guestbk/default.htm ------------------------------------------------------- RecOzNet2 has a page @ http://www.green.net.au/recoznet2 To unsubscribe from this list, mail [EMAIL PROTECTED], and in the body of the message, include the words: unsubscribe announce or click here mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20announce This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use."
